Robert Rowland Smith: Should we endure boring dinner parties?

Is it ungracious to make a speedy exit when bored at a dinner party, despite the hosts executing the evening in an exemplary manner?

Last Friday I was at a dinner party. I was bored. At about 11 I started making
signals to my wife. She got the hint, and announced that we had to get back
for the babysitter. But our babysitter is a night owl and would have stayed
much later, if only to earn the cash. Were we being ungracious? Probably.
The hosts had done nothing wrong. They’d put together a table of people they
thought would enjoy meeting each other. They’d slaved over a hot stove. And
they’d got their house arranged just so. As far as dinner parties go, this
was executed in exemplary fashion, and to feel bored was a reflection more
on me than it.

We spend so much of our lives being bored at work; why should we put up with
it in our own time? Life’s too short to pretend we’re having fun when we’re